Pollster: Future of GOP Hinges on Minority Vote

If Republicans hope to be successful in future elections, they must capture the minority vote, writes Republican pollster and strategist Ryan Steusloff.

GOP chairman Reince Priebus said in February that the Republican Party is making a much greater effort to reach minority voters by making the outreach effort a "long-term, full-time engagement in African-American, Hispanic, and Asian communities across the country," and not just be the party that shows "up about once every four years, five months before an election."

In an opinion piece for Redstate.com, Steusloff, a vice president at Wilson Perkins Allen Opinion Research, says that securing the minority vote is imperative for the GOP.

"Plain and simple, future Republican victories hinge on capturing the growing minority vote," the Republican pollster writes. "And if there's anything the GOP can learn, it's that a Republican can win in a blue state given he or she has the right campaign techniques."

The prime example he gives is the success New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie had in the Garden State in his re-election campaign in November by including "campaign messaging, solid grass-roots efforts, bilingual phone banking and advertisements."

"These efforts will be crucial if Republicans wish to keep their hands in the House, retake the Senate, and capture The White House in 2016," Steusloff says.

According to a Gallup poll released in December, Latino support for President Barack Obama has plummeted over the last year. In December 2012, 75 percent of Latinos said they approved of the job Obama was doing. One year later, that number dropped 23 percentage points to 52 percent.

This puts the GOP in a much more favorable position when it comes to the Hispanic vote, the pollster writes.

"Though the majority of Latinos still support the president, that enormous drop in support is indicative that a great deal of Hispanics are tired of the president's liberal rhetoric and are thirsting for real economic and political change," Steusloff says.

The right strategy is for the Republican Party "to invest in minority communities for long-term electoral success."